The Ones We Lost
by Nina542
Summary: When a decoded clue leads the team to a shipping yard, things become all too real for Jane when her recent nightmare about Weller starts to become reality and a wild sequence of events leaves the team in shambles.
1. What Dreams May Come

**A/N: Hey, all. I had planned on waiting a little longer to write this, just to see how the show plot developed, but the story just couldn't stop itself from springing forth from my brain. Blindspot, man. Got me hook, line and sinker. Enjoy.  
**

* * *

They said therapy was supposed to help. They said that talking to Dr. Borden about who she was, developing 'identity strategies', giving her an outlet to vent…it was supposed to help Jane cope with the insanity that was her life. And it did, for the most part.

Just not today.

It had been a few weeks since the team had managed to make it out of Drackland alive. Exhausted, rattled, injured, but definitely alive. For Reade, the five bullet wound stitches across his upper arm had come out last Tuesday morning. When Zapata spotted the remaining scar in the locker room, she'd smirked and given Reade a light punch on the opposite shoulder, declaring it helped him look like an actual badass. Reade had rolled his eyes, calling after Zapata as she walked out the door that this was his eleventh scar and he was plenty badass enough without a single one, thank you very much. Then he had turned to Jane, who had been both watching the exchange and fiddling with the proper position of her gun holster, and shared with her a smile. Another warm, genuine _you and me are cool_ smile that softened his brown eyes and made Jane feel like maybe, possibly, she could do this. She could belong somewhere.

Except there was still another problem.

"Jane, I've been meaning to inquire. Have you by chance had another dream about the man with the tree tattoo since you first spoke of him? Sexual or otherwise?" Dr. Borden asked. He sat relaxed in the chair across from her, fingers interlaced together in his lap. The spiral notebook and pen he used to capture her thoughts sat untouched on the low table to his right. In their several weeks together, Jane had come to learn that his putting those tools down was indicative that she should speak freely. Everything was off the record.

Jane's eyes flicked to her jeans, eying a dime-length rip in the black denim by her left knee as she decided what to say. The truth was that the question came with answers she didn't know if she could share, despite the silent promise of utter confidentiality. Was she ready for this conversation? Was she willing to delve into the gnawing that had been sitting in the pit of her stomach ever since her newest dream had flung her awake?

Stalling, Jane met Dr. Borden's easy gaze. "Why? Do you think I should be having more dreams about him?" she asked.

One of the doctor's eyebrows gave the smallest twitch. He remained silent, though, and in the space of emptiness between them, Jane watched him watching her for a few moments. She knew he was assessing her body language. Using clues to formulate his theories. Analyzing her response. To be honest, it made her more than a little nervous. Struggling to hold his gaze, Jane began to pick at the tear in her jeans with a fingernail.

Finally, Dr. Borden cocked his head to the side. "Perhaps," he admitted. "Jane, when we spoke about the Drackland mission, you recounted your fear that Agent Weller had been killed in action and relief when he and Agent Zapata returned to the ranger's station unharmed. If the man with the tree tattoo does symbolize Agent Weller, I'm curious to know whether that very real fear triggered any further dreams about the tattooed man."

Jane nodded, still picking at the tear as she carefully chose her words. "Like a nightmare?"

Dr. Borden just shrugged, opening his hands palm up in a _you tell me_ sort of gesture. His purposeful vagueness, Jane had learned, allowed her to interpret what he said however she wanted.

After thinking it over a few more moments, Jane bit her bottom lip and decided to take the plunge. "A few days after we got back from Michigan," she explained, "I had a dream that I was in a warehouse. It was dark, and I was trying to find Weller. I knew he had been shot, but the warehouse was like a maze. I couldn't find him. I was looking and looking but I couldn't find him anywhere. I knew if I didn't find him soon, he was going to die. I _knew_ he was going to die."

Dr. Borden leaned forward on his elbows, engrossed in the story. "That must have been quite terrifying," he sympathized. "How did the dream end?"

Jane swallowed as the gnawing bloomed in her stomach. "I…uh…I found his body. He was lying in a pool of blood on the floor. There was blood across his chest, his arms. I could see his face so clearly, and it was red. Red from all the blood." Scraping her nails across her jeans and into fists, Jane swallowed down the gnawing as it rose up into her throat. "He was dead and it was all my fault."

The doctor nodded solemnly. "These feeling of guilt you're projecting are understandable for the line of work you've now aligned yourself with. You feel responsible for the well being of the team, and in particular, Agent Weller. You fear that your case will lead them to harm, and possibly death. That's all very natural, Jane."

Jane held her breath, watching Dr. Borden sit back comfortably in his chair. She wasn't willing to believe that he was finished with the topic, and waited with dread for him to probe her, forcing her to relive every minutia of the dream and its meaning.

Dr. Borden looked thoughtful. "It's quite notable, though, that you were able to identify Agent Weller so clearly in this dream when you were unable to identify him at all in the last. Might I assume, then, that when you saw him in this dream, you did not see the tree tattoo?"

Jane blinked in surprise. Reflecting, she remembered the blood, his stained clothes, the muted, empty look in Weller's eyes. But no tattoo. She shook her head. "What do you think that means?"

Dr. Borden steepled his fingers and tapped them against his lip. "It could mean that your brain has now formed enough of a long-term memory of Agent Weller that it is able to accurately reproduce him in your dream state."

Jane nodded, but there was something in Dr. Borden's tone that caused her to question his conviction in the answer. "Or…?" she prompted.

The doctor hesitated, but before he could give another opinion, the door behind him opened and Weller himself stepped into the frame. Finding Jane's eyes immediately, the agent nodded that it was time to go.

"Sorry to interrupt. Jane, Patterson's program unlocked another clue."

* * *

Too chipper for mid-morning, Patterson waved her hand in circles around two computer monitors, both showing a blown up section of Jane's skin. The one on the left featured the number string '40.70 – 74.14' found by Jane's ankle, and the other was an intricate tattoo of a fat little pony stamped on her hip. Smiling widely at Reade, Zapata, Jane, and Weller as they stood in a semi-circle around her and the monitors, Patterson pointed with excitement at the numbers.

"So, you all remember how I said that number sequences are tricky to decode because there are too many permutations to really get a lock-down?" she grinned. Looking around at her audience, Patterson waited for a few nods of remembrance before continuing on and tapping the screen of numbers. "At first, I thought this sequence might be a mathematical formula, or degrees of temperature. But check this out. I started cross referencing symbolic clues with the numeric ones and this combination jumped out at me." She tapped rapidly at the other screen. "The pony. It's P-O-N-Y. Put that together with the numbers, and we've got GPS coordinates for the Port of New York!"

While the rest of the team blinked at the connection in surprise, Weller took a step closer to the monitor with the numbers, scrutinizing it like he expected the reason for the clue to digitize from the zeros and sevens themselves. "Good work, Patterson. Where exactly in the port do the coordinates point to?"

"Well…" Patterson hesitated.

"Don't tell me it's the top of one of those damn container cranes," Zapata jumped in from Jane's left. "The rest of you can have your little adventure time, I'm staying down on the ground. Or better yet, in the truck."

"What's the matter? You scared of a little view?" Reade teased with a smirk.

Zapata narrowed her eyes. "More like scared of the splat I'd make when I fall thirty stories to my death. My cutoff is three."

"Actually, it's a parking lot," Patterson chimed in, breaking up the conversation as she fished a tablet from her lab coat and tapping an icon. The tattooed numbers disappeared, replaced with a satellite image of a wide and vast parking lot, scattered with flatbed trucks meant for receiving containers from the cranes and driving them to their designated row. North of the lot, there were two long warehouses. To its south was a green channel of port water. To its east and west were rows upon rows of shipping containers. There were easily thousands. "The coordinates are smack in the middle of that parking lot," Patterson explained. "I'm not sure what it means, but maybe once you get there and take a look around, something will pop up."

Reade snorted. "Or shoot at us. That seems to be the trend these days."

Zapata arched an eyebrow at him. "What's the matter? You scared another scar will ruin your modeling career?"

As the two agents carried on with their ribbings towards the elevators and Weller questioned Patterson for more details, Jane moved closer to the satellite image. Particularly, her eyes locked on the two warehouses the team was about to go search. She stared at them in disbelief as the gnawing in her stomach twisted up her insides. Her dream. How was it possible that on the same day she should bring it up…?

Images of Weller's blank eyes and bloodied face flashed against the satellite image, raising goosebumps up along Jane's arms. She shivered, trying to convince her brain that the pool of red, the terror, the endless maze in her dream had been just that: a dream. Not at all connected to reality. Still, Jane hugged herself tightly like she meant to squeeze out the fear itself.

"Jane?" Weller's voice came from behind her, and she could sense him standing just over her shoulder. Practically feel the heat from him. She had to resist the urge to lean back against his chest. Take in the strength of his presence. The very real fact that he was very much alive. When she didn't answer, he stepped around and positioned himself between her and the monitor. His gaze danced across her features in concern. "Jane, what is it?"

Jane shook her head, forcing herself to focus on the scruff on Weller's jaw. The way the room lights overhead reflected in his worried, blue eyes. "Nothing. It's just…there's a lot of space to cover. I don't like that we'll be so spread out. And we have no idea what we're looking for."

If Weller didn't buy her answer, he didn't let on. "That's why we've got earpieces," he said reassuringly. "We'll always be connected."

Jane nodded, but as they both turned to follow Zapata and Reade to the parking lot several stories below, she couldn't stop herself from wondering if he was right.


	2. The Ones We Left Behind

If there was one thing Weller had quickly learned in their short time together, it was that he _really_ didn't like it when Jane was upset. It was unsettling, like the whole world was just the slightest bit tilted, but there nothing he could do to make it right. Every time she looked at him with those consuming, haunted green eyes he ended up feeling, to put it simply, completely and utterly off balance.

Stealing a thirteenth glance at the seat opposite his, Weller felt as edgy as ever as he once again resisted telling Zapata to pull their SUV to the shoulder. Crossing a bridge on the I-78 meant no place for a pit stop, but he wanted nothing more than to take Jane away from burning ears and ask her what was going on. What was really spooking her? And why wouldn't she tell him the truth? It had been eating away at him for the last half hour, but Weller held his tongue. He watched instead as Jane _tap-tap-tapped_ her chair arm restlessly and silently looked out her side window as they crossed Newark Bay. She was going to tap a hole right through the leather.

Weller took a breath, forcing himself to look away and across the water as he pulled out his cell phone and speed dialed Patterson. He would reassess Jane when they arrived at the port in a few minutes. And he'd leave her in the car if it came to that.

As per usual, Patterson picked up before the end of the first ring. "Did you know that the port employs over seven thousand people?" she asked. "More than five hundred of them drive flatbeds, and let me tell you – that is a lot of background checks to run."

Weller focused on the row of red and white striped cranes that lined the channel beyond. They were metal dinosaurs, with long necks stretching across docketed ships and four wide legs anchoring their enormous weight in place; raising and lowering, raising and lowering their cargo onto the waiting trucks below.

"Keep at it," he instructed. "I know it's a lot, but if I'm right and we're dealing with a smuggling operation here, one of those drivers is the key. How's it coming getting satellite footage of the parking lot for the last couple months?"

Patterson let out a sigh of defeat. "Not great. I mean – it's great because I've got the footage, but not so great because it's a dead end. The trucks all look the exact same from above, so it's virtually impossible to tell if a different truck parks at our GPS location every day, or the same one. And the drivers are too small to tell them apart."

Weller had suspected as much, but it didn't hurt to be thorough. "That's okay. We'll have a better idea once we arrive at the port and can see everything firsthand. Just keep at it and call me as soon as you have anything."

"Roger that," Patterson replied before disconnecting.

Stuffing his phone away, Weller caught Zapata's eyes in the rearview mirror darting a look at Jane. Returning his own look, she raised an eyebrow at him. "So what's your gut saying's being smuggled in and out?" she asked. "Personally, my money's on exotic cars. Stolen artwork would be nice, too, though. I'm kind of over drugs and guns."

Weller knew Zapata was trying to cut through whatever was bothering her friend, but at the mention of the word 'guns', Jane's head snapped over and she stared at the agent's slit of a reflection in the mirror with wide, frightened eyes.

Weller clenched his jaw. "I dunno, there's a lot you can fit in a forty foot long metal box."

* * *

Upon initial inspection, the flatbed truck parked in the team's GPS location looked almost exactly like all the other flatbed trucks that it sat between; a squat, sunflower yellow cab glinting in the afternoon sun, hooked to a long and barren 12-wheeler bed. The only difference was that each truck had its own unique seven-digit number, stamped in black and visible just below the handle on the driver's side door. Their truck read '3397889'.

Standing next to the cab, Reade reached into his pantsuit pocket and fished out his phone. Bringing up the camera, he zoomed in and snapped a picture of the number string for Patterson to run. "Please let this not be a shot in the dark…" he said out loud, showing crossed fingers to Weller before hitting send.

Weller looked up and down the rows of abandoned vehicles, trying to spot the supervisor who was supposed to be meeting them. He then glanced at his watch, noting it was shortly after noon. "The tattoos led us to this spot, so something around here's going to be the answer. The trucks, the parking lot…nothing's off the table."

"It would be a lot easier if our contact showed up to tell us what's what," Reade continued, quirking an eyebrow with amusement. "It's lunch time. You think he got stuck in some McDonald's drive through?"

Weller just shrugged, trying to force a smile he didn't feel as he turned his attention to Jane and Zapata. The women were crouched by the bed's back tires, pointing at what looked like something yellow on the radiating pavement. "Got something back there?" he called to them.

Zapata stood, pulling out her phone. "A match," she called back, placing the device to her ear so she could relay the finding back to Patterson.

Jane stood as well, rounding the end of the bed to join her teammates at the front. "The same seven numbers that are on the truck's door are also on the pavement back there. It must mean that the parking spots are all assigned to specific trucks," she explained. Her voice was even-leveled and she didn't seem to have that bunched up tension across her shoulders anymore, but as Jane came to stand in front of Weller, he noted her fingers were skimming the top of her thigh just a little too close to her gun holster.

Weller nodded, trying to ignore his tilted world. This had to be the break they needed. "Good. Patterson will be able to find the driver from that."

True to his word, it took less than a minute for Weller's phone to ring out with their answer. The team gathered around as he put the call on speakerphone. "Patterson, tell us what you've got."

"I've got Azri Mohsin," she trilled with excitement. "According to the port's employee files, he's here from Malaysia on a worker's permit. It looks like the port has been sponsoring his employment since 2005, which is pretty impressive as far as permits go. He's thirty-nine, lives in Jersey, has a clean record, but I'm still combing through his financials so I'll let you know if anything pops."

"Good job," Weller said. "Do we know if he's working today?"

"We do," Patterson answered. "According to the schedule, Mohsin's here from 7:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., with lunch from 12:00 to 1:00. I don't see any repetitive transactions on his credit card statements, so I doubt he leaves the port to buy lunch every day. If I had to guess, he's probably around somewhere eating a sandwich. Happy manhunt! I'll send you a photo of his driver's licence."

A few seconds later, the team was staring at Weller's screen, committing to memory the photo of a sun-weathered Malaysian. A decade of dock work had left Mohsin's skin tanned and rough, hardened from spending ten hour shifts between his truck, the sun, and the blowing harbor wind. He wore black, square framed glasses that looked to Weller like they belonged on some hipster's face half his age, and had glossy black hair that he slicked to the side.

"All right, we've got less than an hour before Mohsin comes back here from lunch, so we might as well use it. It's a big space, but who knows – maybe we'll get lucky," Weller said, surveying his team. "Zapata, take the west. Reade, you take east – "

"I've got the warehouses," Jane abruptly cut in. Lips pressed in a firm line, she gave Weller a hard, determined stare that didn't quite mask the rise of flickering panic he saw beneath.

As two startled pairs of eyes looked between them, alarm bells rang in Weller's ears; blaring out a warning that letting this woman loose when she was both skittish and armed would be a lethal mistake waiting to happen. If she was this spooked, then Weller wanted her by the safety of the SUV. Preferably locked inside it.

Decision made, Weller shook his head. "No, Jane, you're staying by the flatbed. It's a long shot we'll find Mohsin with all this ground to cover, but we know he'll come back to the truck at some point. If we don't find him, I want you to radio us the minute you have a visual. And I want you to give me your gun."

"What? No! How about _you_ stay here," Jane insisted, panic rising in her words. "Stay here and put your vest on. We should all put our vests on, just in case," she said, looking at the others. "Weller said someone could fit a lot in those containers, so what if it is guns? Or worse? Why take the chance?"

Jane had to know she was sounding crazy. She had to see the way Reade and Zapata were staring at her like she'd just grown a second head. Before either of the other two agents could comment, though, Weller took Jane by the elbow and pulled her forcefully from the group. Walking them towards the SUV, he turned his back to his remaining teammates and held onto Jane's arms as he searched her eyes.

"You are not in any danger, Jane. None of us are. And there is nothing here that makes me think any of us will be. We're conducting an investigation, not walking into a firefight," he said firmly. Then he paused, trying to right his tilted world. "So what is it? Tell me what it is that's got you so afraid right now."

At first, Jane said nothing. She just looked back at him with those big, green eyes of hers that flickered through too many emotions, too fast for Weller to name just one. Finally, just when Weller feared he'd have to shake something out of her, the tension he felt through Jane's arms dissipated away and she gave a small, downcast shake of the head. "I'm sorry, I just…it's just something about this place."

Weller exhaled slowly, trying to understand what something like that meant coming from a person with almost no memories. But he'd seen firsthand how even random, innocuous events had badly affected Jane before. "Does the port looks familiar?" he probed. "Maybe you're remembering a bad experience from being here before."

Jane nodded vigorously, her eyes lighting up as if the thought had never occurred to her but actually made a lot of sense. "Maybe I'll figure out what it is when I'm walking around."

Weller kept a strong grip on Jane's arms as he debated on whether this was an answer he was willing to accept. On whether this was a situation he was willing to allow. It was possible Jane hadn't been able to articulate what she was feeling until now, which would explain earlier lie. Was that it? Would she really be fine? Or would the resurfacing of the memory trigger another panic attack? His world was still too tilted to decide.

"All right, Jane," he said slowly. "I'll stay by the flatbed, and you can look around the warehouses. But I want you to radio in the second something comes back to you, all right? I want you to talk to me, Jane. And if it becomes too much then I'll come find you."

As she nodded her agreement, Weller's thumb began to caress the inside of Jane's arm. She didn't seem to notice, but he quickly caught himself, let go, and held up an open hand. "I still want your gun, though."

A flash of panic crossed Jane's face, then she blinked and it was gone. "Fine," she answered, reaching for the weapon.

* * *

Jane told herself that lies were sometimes necessary. That Weller was the type of guy who looked at the world in black and white, and never would have accepted the idea that she had foreseen his own death. If Jane had told him the truth, he would have marched them both into the warehouses so he could prove to her that everything was fine and she had nothing to worry about. No, the lie had been necessary. Even if it meant that all three of her teammates thought she had finally lost her mind.

Weller would not be shot today.

Gaining some control over the situation put Jane at relative ease. Satisfied that Weller was safe for now, Jane focused back on the first of two warehouses. Like the parking lot, it was void of employees and smelled sharply of what she imagined was diesel fuel. Wide and vast, it housed aisle upon aisle of metal shelving, stocked with various sized boxes that stacked up nearly to the ceiling. Flashing through her limited knowledge of the world, Jane decided that the whole place reminded her of a grocery store. A concrete floored, poorly lit grocery store you'd need a forklift to get anything from.

"Excuse me, ma'am, can I help you?" came a gruff voice.

Startled from her thoughts, Jane spun around to find a burly, linebacker of a man in a grey uniform striding purposefully towards her from the next aisle over. Palming the handle of the billy club at his waist, he also had a walkie-talkie, flashlight, and taser clipped to his utility belt, the later causing Jane to wonder what other weapons Super Guard had that she couldn't see. The official looking badge pinned to his chest was easy to spot, though, as was the way he narrowed his eyes at Jane suspiciously as he closed the distance between them.

Admittedly, his accusing stare made Jane feel a bit uncomfortable, despite the fact it was probably warranted. Between all her visible tattoos, Jane's pale face, and the way she was casually looking around, the man probably thought she was a hopped up meth addict trying to find something easy to steal.

Jane extended her hand and put on her best smile. "I hope you can help me," she said, trying not to flinch as the guard practically crushed her knuckles in his grasp. "My name is Jane, and I'm with the FBI. We're looking for a driver named Azri Mohsin. Do you happen to know who he is, or where we could find him? We have a few questions." As additional proof that she wasn't just making the whole thing up, Jane recited some of the other details Patterson had told the team, and described Mohsin's photo.

The guard's hard eyes narrowed into slits, darting to Jane's empty gun holster before looking up and down her body again. "'With' the FBI, huh? Yeah, the name might ring a bell. What's this all about?" he asked, scratching at his short-cropped hair.

Jane crossed her arms as she stood tall and channeled Weller. "I'm a consultant. As for what this is about, I'm afraid that's classified. I'd appreciate your cooperation, though. Could you maybe radio the other guards?" she asked, nodding to the man's walkie-talkie. "Ask if anyone has seen Mr. Mohsin?"

The guard rubbed the stubble under his chin with the back of his fingers. He looked briefly around, then back at Jane with a look of stoic resolution. "Yeah, sure. Just stay here and I'll be back."

"Thank you," Jane answered, still feeling uneasy as she watched him turn away and head towards one of the only exits she could see.

* * *

Leaning against the grille of Mohsin's flatbed, Weller was growing restless from looking up and down the parking row and taking in the view of the harbour. His restlessness, though, wasn't from standing around wasting time. The truth was that Weller couldn't stop thinking about Jane. Her frightened eyes, the potentiality that she'd been here before, and her need to continue on - alone. It didn't help that the last few memories she had shared had been anything but pleasant. They'd been more like a punch below the belt, if Weller was being honest. So if this walkabout Jane had been so forceful about going on did recover additional memories, he dreaded as much as anticipated what they could be.

Checking his watch, Weller decided that ten minutes was long enough to wait before checking in with his team. He pushed himself off the grille. "Jane? What's your status?"

"I just spoke to a guard in the first warehouse. He's going to radio around to see if anyone has seen Mohsin," she answered in his ear. "You're still at the flatbed?"

"Yeah, I'm still here," he replied. A beat later he added; "Anything else?"

"No, nothing."

Weller nodded to himself, not sure how he felt about the news. "Okay, keep me posted. Zapata, how about you?"

"Found a couple guys having a smoke by the docks. They don't know who Mohsin is, but said they did see an Asian dude walk by about fifteen minutes ago. Might be him, might not."

"Keep your eyes peeled. You never know," Weller answered. "Reade?"

"Whole lot of nothing on my end," came the reply.

"All right, I'll check back in another ten," Weller said. "Be patient, team. He's going to show up. It's just a matter of who'll see him first."

"My money's on you," Zapata said in his ear. "That is if you're not too busy sitting on your ass swiping angry birds to notice."

Despite himself, Weller smiled. "I got it for my nephew," he said in defence.

Jane chimed in, sounding confused. "Swiping angry birds?" she asked.

Weller's grin widened a fraction. "It's an app for kids," he explained. "You shoot these birds from a slingshot at a bunch of pigs." Looking out, it was then that he spotted a group of five workers who had just appeared at the end of the parking row to his west, still some distance away. Three men and two women. One of the men, wearing an AC/DC shirt, must have been telling a story because his long arms flew all through the air, talking as the others laughed.

"That…sounds like a really weird game," Jane admitted.

Zapata gave a laugh. "It _is_."

"Which is why Sawyer's obsessed," Weller answered. "The physics are sound, though, so I can't complain." Squinting down the row at the man walking in the middle of the group, a certain pair of hipster glasses jumped out at him. He began to walk. "Team, I've got eyes on Mohsin," Weller announced. "Head back on over."

"Fast lunch," said Zapata.

"Copy that," said Reade.

Inside the warehouse, Jane was still trying to picture using birds as ammunition when there was a sudden crash from behind her. She spun around, automatically putting a hand on a gun that wasn't there. Instead of answering, Jane froze.

"Excuse me - Azri Mohsin?" Weller called. The group was still about twenty feet away, but turned their heads towards him.

"That's me," Mohsin called back, looking Weller up and down. Eyes landing on the shield at Weller's hip, he stopped in his tracks. His friends stopped, too, looking from the agent to their friend in confusion.

"What's the matter?" the man in the AC/DC shirt asked.

Mohsin took a step back. Weller picked up the pace, suddenly getting a bad feeling. "Zapata, I think he's about to – "

Before the word could be uttered, Mohsin shot back around and broke off into a frantic sprint. Weller jumped into pursuit, barking orders at his team as Mohsin cut south then straight towards the rows of shipping containers across from the parking lot. "He's heading for the containers closest to the docks. Zapata, get in there and he'll be coming straight at you. Jane, come in from the north and make sure he doesn't cut up." Breaking through the remaining group, he watched Mohsin dash behind an eight foot tall metal box and disappear. "Reade, flank from the east in case he doubles back. We'll surround him."

"Copy that."

In the few extra seconds it took Weller to run into the same row, Mohsin was more than halfway down it. Going full tilt towards the wide opening at the other end, Weller knew if he got there, Mohsin could continue on in any direction.

"Zapata, where are you?"

As if summoned by the question, the agent materialized at the other end of the row. Gun drawn, she planted her feet and aimed the weapon straight at Mohsin's chest. He ground to a halt in front of her, gasping for breath. "FBI. Get on your knees and put your hands on your head," she ordered. Shaking, Mohsin did was he was told.

Breathing heavily, Weller gave Zapata a nod as he came up from behind and cuffed their kneeling suspect. "Nice work," he said, before adding into his microphone, "Jane, Reade, we've got him."

Zapata holstering her gun. "You know…as far as chases go, that one was pretty easy."

Pulling Mohsin up by the collar, Weller and Zapata led him out of the container aisle just as Reade jogged up. Jane, though, was nowhere to be seen.

Weller looked towards the warehouses. "Jane, we're heading over to the SUV. What's your status?" he asked into the microphone. After a few seconds of silence, he traded worried expressions with the other agents. "Jane? You there?" he said again.

Another few seconds of silence was all it took for an anvil to drop into Weller's stomach. Pushing Mohsin into Reade's waiting grasp, Weller took off in a run towards the first warehouse. "Jane, answer me," he practically shouted into the mic. "Jane!"

Heart pounding, alarm bells ringing, world tilting, Weller still wasn't prepared for the scene that awaited him when he walked through the doors, and it stopped him in his tracks.

There was a man's body on the floor. A security guard's, with the red bloom from a spreading chest wound staining his gray uniform an almost black. In his limp hand was a bloodied knife. A foot away was undeniably Jane's earpiece. And dotting the cement floor, leading away from the body like a map towards the other end of the warehouse, was a trail of fresh blood.

It was suddenly hard to breath. Hard to think. Hard to do anything other than run after the blood droplets and try to remain upright when everything was suddenly sideways and nothing made sense. How was this even happening? Hadn't he done everything he should?

"Jane!" The word burst cracked and broken from Weller's lips, echoing around in the emptiness as a clawing panic reached up his throat. The trail led him all the way to the very end of the warehouse, to an emergency exit door. Throwing his shoulder against it, Weller went through.

He was back outside. The blood drops continued for a few feet on the pavement, and then nothing. They just stopped. And as he frantically spun around, looking for cameras or a witness or _anything_ to tell him what was going on, one single thought played over and over in Weller's head.

Through his own failure, Jane was now a missing person. Again.


	3. Back Down the Rabbit Hole

**A/N: Augh. Friends, I'm so sorry this is up late. I *really* wanted to get it up by Saturday but my week was so busy I didn't even start writing it until then. Sorry for the delay. Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

It took Weller more than a moment to shake off the rushing fear. To slow his heart rate back down. He told himself that figuring out what had happened would help bring Jane back, while letting his emotions run away would not. Taking a breath, he started at the beginning.

He knew Jane had been on edge all day. She even had admitted the port made her uneasy. Was it possible, then, that a resurfaced memory had swept Jane away in a panic attack? Could her fear have caused her to stab the guard, then break into a car to escape? Weller looked back at the pavement, thinking that getting into a car would explain why the blood trail had suddenly stopped. But there was no smashed window glass on the pavement or evidence a door had been forced open. If Jane really had made an escape, it meant she'd either gotten into an unlocked vehicle, or continued on foot, finding a way to stop the bleeding so it didn't leave a trail.

But why leave at all? And why leave behind her earpiece?

The theory made no sense. For starters, Weller knew Jane's sense of right and wrong would prevent her from fleeing a crime she had committed – panicked or not. If anything, Jane's compassion would have caused her to stick around and try to save the man. Given the evidence, Weller's gut told him that there had to be at least one other person involved in all of this in order to force Jane to leave the scene. So that led to option number two: that Jane was currently in pursuit of someone. He recalled her report of speaking to a guard, and that the guard was going to call around and ask for Mohsin. If word had spread, had she left because the third party had come on the scene, attacked the guard, and she was following after? Or was the guard in on it, and had called in an accomplice who Jane was now chasing down?

The odds of two against one could explain why Jane lost her earpiece. But it also required Weller to consider a more insidious, and much more terrifying, option number three. Namely, that the third party had ensured Jane didn't leave by choice at all.

Weller grit his teeth as the last thought sent the world tilting and his stomach lurching. It was a struggle, but he forced his scattered brain to focus. One thing at a time. If he wanted to help Jane, then he had to form a plan and focus on one thing at a time. Blowing out a huff of air through his clenched jaw, Weller started with his cell phone. Digging it from his pocket, he speed dialed Jane's number hoping it wasn't a long shot, then quickly jogged up and down the length of the warehouse as the phone rang, looking for other clues or maybe even Jane herself. Neither was found.

" _Hi , this is Jane. Leave a message."_

There was a faint, upwards swing to the ends of her words, like Jane hadn't quite known what she was doing when she had spoken them. Weller had been there when she had made the recording, watching and suppressing a smile at her awkwardness.

He wasn't smiling now. "Jane, it's Kurt. Call me as soon as you get this," he said. Swallowing, he added; "I hope you're okay."

Back where he started, Weller swung the emergency door open and speed dialed Patterson, composing a task list in his mind as he following the blood trail back to the body. He needed a perimeter set up. He needed the warehouse swept. He needed to ID the guard and have the closest CSI unit called in. He needed Mohsin secured and questioned. He needed to find a witness, or some cameras with an actual view of the warehouse.

Most importantly, he needed Jane back, safe and sound.

Patterson picked up. "Hey, how's the manhunt coming along?"

Weller's throat seized at the question, cutting off his response. He swallowed hard. "We've got Mohsin, but now a security guard is dead and Jane is missing. I need you to trace the GPS coordinates on her phone."

"Oh my God. Yeah, of course." Weller could hear the faint but rapid clicking of keys as Patterson shrilly asked "What happened?"

Nearing the body, still laying bloody and motionless between two aisles of shelving, Weller spotted Zapata coming into the warehouse from the other side. Hand on her gun holster, her gaze went from the dead man on the floor, up to Weller, then flicked around looking for Jane.

"You didn't find her?" Zapata asked in alarm.

Weller pulled the cell from his ear and hit the speakerphone button. Meeting Zapata by the feet of the dead man, he quickly recounted how he'd sent Jane off alone, found the body, followed the blood trail, and explained his theories on what could have happened.

By the end, Weller must have sounded as raw as he felt because Zapata reached up and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Hey, this wasn't your fault, Kurt. All right?" she said gently, no doubt picking up on the guilt that was churning over in his stomach. "Jane's a tough girl. She'll be okay. Wherever she is, we'll get her back."

Weller's gaze trailed down to the pocket knife in the guard's hand, focusing on its cherry wood handle beneath the coating of blood. He shook his head as his throat closed up. "I never should have taken her gun away."

"Okay, guys, I've got a lock on Jane's phone but you're not going to like it," Patterson said. The rising level in her voice was palpable. "I compared it to your location and it's right where you're standing."

Weller and Zapata exchanged looks. Right where they were standing was right where the body was.

"Call it," Weller ordered to Patterson. Passing Zapata his phone, he rounded the body and got to his hands and knees.

A shrill ring came a moment later. Ear down, Weller was careful to avoid disturbing the scene as he moved his head towards the sound. He stopped at the guard's waist, then listened for another ring just to be sure, hoping he'd be wrong.

Unfortunately, there was no mistaking it.

Cursing under his breath, Weller righted himself and looked at Zapata as a knot formed in his stomach. She appeared to be standing just a bit sideways as he said; "Jane's phone is in his pocket."

* * *

Leaning against the SUV, Reade was starting to get a sinking feeling from the radio silence. "Hey guys," he said into his comm. "Everything okay in there?"

Zapata answered immediately. "Jane's missing. We need you in here now. Bring Mohsin," she said quickly.

The news jolted Reade upright. "Wait, _what_?"

By the time Reade had fished their suspect from the backseat of the vehicle and walked him to the warehouse entrance, Zapata was finishing up the longer version of the story and moving on to the newest information available. Patterson had successfully ID'd the dead guard from a photograph Weller had snapped and emailed to her. His name was Troy Argent. He'd been a port security guard for the past fifteen years, and according to his job history, had worked for a private security company beforehand.

Entering the warehouse, Reade watched for Mohsin's reaction as he led their suspect under the yellow police tape Zapata had strung up, right down the aisle to Argent's body, where she and Weller stood waiting. All three of them saw how Mohsin jumped at the sight of the dead man. They saw how he shuddered and quickly looked away, pulling against Reade's grip like he wanted to distance himself as much as possible from the scene. As per Weller's instructions, Reade cuffed Mohsin to the shelving unit so that he was in direct eyesight of the body, less than eight feet from him. There was no doubt it was an unorthodox move because he'd likely end up being in the way once the CSI unit arrived. But Weller had insisted. According to their team lead, _being that close will keep him off balance. And we want him to be off balance._ Reade gave the cuff hooked around the metal post a hard tug before satisfying himself that Mohsin wasn't going anywhere. He then walked over and joined the rest of the team off to the side and out of earshot.

Zapata was standing with her arms crossed, staring hard at Mohsin with a death glare Reade knew she reserved for only the worst of the worst suspects. It was clear she was furious, but next to her, Weller's silent, simmering intensity was overpowering. His entire body practically vibrated with tension. His jaw twitched, his lips were nearly white from being pressed so tightly together, and when he looked from Mohsin over to Reade, the agent saw an expression he'd never seen before in his leader. It was a mixture of rage, guilt, and despair.

Reade took a breath, his mind spinning with repercussions. "Kurt, we'll find her," he said. "You know we'll find her."

In response, Weller gave the smallest move of his head, which could have been a nod or maybe not. He inhaled deeply, expanding out his chest before deflating it again. Then his expression hardened into what Reade recognized as his full on work mode. "The security office for the port is close by. Zapata, I want you and Reade to head over and look through the footage. See if you can find anything that would explain how our guard ended up dead, who else was involved, and where they took Jane."

Reade frowned. "Okay…" he said slowly, exchanging a look with Zapata and beginning to suspect he wasn't about to like the answer to his question. "But if I go with Zapata, what are you going to do?"

Weller's jaw clenched up as he turned his hard stare back to their suspect. For a moment, the three of them just watched the man stand limply against the metal shelf, his one arm cuffed up above his head and his gaze on the floor. His weathered skin looked pale. "My gut's telling me Argent and Mohsin are connected in all of this," Weller explained. His words were biting and razor sharp. "What I'm going to do is question Mohsin to find out how."

Immediately Reade shook his head, tensing at the argument he was walking himself into. "Weller, no offense, but I don't think you're the person for the job. You're too close to this." He looked over at Zapata, silently asking her to back him up. "How about the two of you go review the footage and I'll do the questioning. Patterson will get back to us with more intel on them both and I'll run with that."

Weller crossed his arms, tipping his chin up a fraction and turning slightly so that he was facing Reade head on. It was the pose of a challenge. He started to shake his head no.

"Yeah, Kurt," Zapata jumped in before Weller could speak. Moving, she positioned herself between the men as if to shield Reade from him. "We both know Reade's pretty lame when it comes to video surveillance. He'd miss a damn elephant if it walked in front of the camera. Me and you - we'll find something in no time. A lot faster than it'll take to break Mohsin, too."

Weller looked away. He looked off in the distance, then at Reade, down to Zapata, then finally at the concrete floor. "Fine," he grumbled, shooting one final glance at Mohsin before turning to leave. "Let's go. We've wasted enough time."

Letting out the breath he'd been holding, Reade caught Zapata's arm. Then he waited until Weller had walked far enough away before leaning forward and muttered a sincere "Thanks, loser."

Zapata looked over her shoulder at him. "Don't thank me yet," she said, before following Weller towards their exit.

* * *

The port's video surveillance room was probably as cramped as all the other surveillance rooms Zapata had been in over the years. It just felt more so, sitting at the controls, sensing Weller hovering just a little too close behind her. He wanted answers. Now.

"Tell me about the setup you have," she asked, directing the question to the elderly, pot-bellied guard who had given her his seat. "Are cameras disbursed in a grid pattern, or are they only set up for high volume areas? We're looking specifically for any cameras that are pointed at or around the warehouse closest to the flatbed parking lot."

The man perked up, glad to be of assistance to the government agents as he otherwise stood uselessly by the surveillance room door. "In that case, you'll want camera seventy-four. It's mounted right over the entrance and you can get a real nice shot of anyone coming in and out."

Zapata flexed her fingers and got to work, tapped furiously across the keyboard. Bringing the feed of camera seventy-four to the front screen, she noted the camera angle was mounted high, pointing down across the entrance. Watching on the live feed, they saw members from the CSI unit arriving with their gear to tag up the scene. Zapata could see the tops of the analysts' heads as they passed underneath.

"Bring it back to 12:15. That's about when I split the team up," Weller instructed.

Zapata typed the numbers and jumped the tape back to exactly 12:15. Hitting play, she sensed Weller leaning in, scrutinizing the screen for clues over her shoulder. They saw people walking by in the distance, and soon Jane walked into view. She looked nervous, pausing for a moment at the entranceway to look around before stepping inside. A minute later, Argent came around the corner. He was the macho type. Appearing strong and confident, he took long strides towards the entrance before he too went into the warehouse.

Beside her, Zapata heard Weller hold in his breath as ten seconds passed. Then fifteen. Then twenty.

Cursor hovering over the fast-forward button, Zapata was just about to click when Argent reappeared on the screen. He stood in profile, looking quickly around him first like he was afraid someone was spying on him, before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell. Dialing a number, he held it up to his ear and there were a few long beats before the man began to speak. Without audio, it was impossible to know what Argent was saying. But whatever he did say was short. Within ten seconds, the guard hung up and put his phone away. Then with a look of hard determination in his eyes, he pulled a taser from the holster at his waist before walking back into the warehouse.

Zapata swallowed. Beside her, Weller's palms slammed down hard on the desk, causing the older guard and even Zapata to jump. "A taser?" he seethed, fingers curling into fists. "He planned to shoot Jane with a _taser?_ " At the last word, he pounded a fist so hard the keyboard hopped an inch.

They both knew what it was like to be shot by a taser. It was part of their training, as FBI agents at Quantico, to know what it felt like and how to recover. Zapata remembered it well. The complete seizing of her muscles. Falling straight to the floor mats because nothing in her body could prevent it. The terror that for the next minute or so she was completely unable to do anything.

In her opinion, it was better to be shot with a gun. At least a bullet wound still allowed a person to move around and fight back.

"Weller, hey, listen to me," Zapata urged, turning in her chair to face the other agent. "We don't know he actually did shoot Jane. What we do know is that it's possible from this angle to figure out who Argent dialed. The camera's pointed right at his screen."

This seemed to break through and pull Weller back, away from the memories and the scenarios no doubt wreaking havoc in his brain. Raking a hand through his hair, he nodded at her and took a deep breath. He looked shaken. "Okay. Yeah, let's do that."

Zapata nodded, turning immediately back to the screen, admittedly unnerved at seeing Weller so affected. It wasn't that he never got angry, frustrated, or even upset – that was all part of the job they'd all been there. But what she was seeing at that moment was the beginnings of something else entirely.

Weller paced nonstop behind Zapata as she worked the mouse, first blowing up the screen to get a clear shot of Argent's phone and the numbers he dialed, then sticking her USB into the computer port to shortcut back to the Bureau's network to run them. Seconds later, her search came up with no match, which meant the number was attached to a burner phone.

"Try to nail down a geolocation," Weller said, still pacing. "If that doesn't work – "

" – I'll do a triangulation," Zapata finished, her fingers whizzing across the keyboard. "I won't need to, though. Look." Hitting the enter key, she brought a satellite map of the flatbed parking lot up on the screen and pointed with her finger to the middle of it, right at a blinking red dot. It was the same location of a certain Malaysian driver's truck. Smiling in grim satisfaction, Zapata couldn't help but feel like she had managed to finally move them forward in the case. "You were right, Weller," she said, still looking at the screen. "Mohsin and Argent _are_ connected."

* * *

Back in the warehouse, Mohsin sniveled and looked up at Reade with watery eyes partially hidden by the frames of his glasses. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about. Honest," he whined for the hundredth time.

Reade let out a frustrated sigh. No matter what he threw at him, Mohsin was sticking to his _I'm innocent_ routine so convincingly, it was almost believable. Almost. What Reade needed was something concrete to run at him with instead of just fishing around, applying pressure and hoping Mohsin would break. Patterson hadn't struck gold yet, so until he had something tangible he was basically trying to get a criminal to confess to a crime without actually knowing what the crime was. A complete exercise in frustration. It was just lucky Zapata got Weller to leave, because at that moment, Reade himself was ready to put Mohsin in a choke hold. Weller no doubt would have done worse.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Reade looked around vainly at the analysts buzzing around the crime scene, taking photos, collecting samples, hoping one of them would magically appear with some breakthrough evidence he could use. That was when he noticed one of the analysts, a young blonde wearing an ID badge, walking towards him with an evidence bag.

"Excuse me, Agent Reade?" she asked. Coming to a stop by the two men, the analyst gave Mohsin a wary look, then took a step back. "I'm so sorry to interrupt, but do you have a minute?"

Reade nearly smiled. Yes, in fact he did have a minute. Anything to get him away from the whining, sniveling sob story the Malaysian kept pushing out. As if on cue, Mohsin adjusting his glasses with his one free hand before giving a long sniff and wiping his nose on his sleeve. Disgusted, Reade turned away, hoping for some good news. With any luck, whatever was in the evidence bag was the break he needed. Gesturing for the woman to follow him, Reade moved a few paces away. "You got something?" he asked, looking down at the bag.

The analyst held it up, allowing Reade to clearly see a black taser gun inside and the two long, thread-thin wires coming out from its cartridge, signifying that the taser had been fired. The wires had been wrapped up together in a neat coil, ending at the single, barbed probes each wire attached to. "We found this, sir, underneath a shelving unit about eight feet from the victim," the woman explained. "Based on the indentations here" - she pointed - "and scratch marks along here, I believe after the taser was fired, it was dropped and kicked away."

Reade nodded, a bad feeling starting to sink in as he leaned forward to get a closer look at the probes. He could see what looked like the smallest threads of material caught on the ends of the barbs, no doubt pulled from the clothing of whomever had been shot at. They were black threads, from the looks of it. And he seemed to recall Jane had been wearing a black pair of jeans. The bad feeling worsened as he stared at the probes, mind racing as he realized something didn't quite add up. If Jane had been shot, could she still be the one who cause the weapon to become dented and scratched? It seemed unlikely.

"Put a rush on this," Reade instructed. "I need this fabric identified as soon as possible."

"Of course, sir," the analyst nodded, before hurrying off to send the bag back to the lab.

Rubbing a hand down his face, Reade shook his head in disbelief. He didn't think it was quite possible, but somehow the situation had managed to get worse instead of better. The thought of telling Weller the taser news did not sit well in his head, either. Maybe he'd save it for when they came back, so Zapata didn't have to deal with the fallout alone.

"Come on, Jane," Reade muttered. "Where are you?"

As it was, someone else decided to answer.

"Reade," Zapata suddenly burst in his ear. "We've got something over here."

Heart leaping, Reade rushed to get the words out. "About time. What is it?"

"We traced a call Argent made earlier to a burner phone Mohsin owns. The phone itself is in his flatbed. The two have got to be connected."

Letting out a huge sigh of relief, Reade glanced up at the ceiling to thank whoever was up there for answering his SOS. "Thanks. That's all I needed," he smiled.

"Go get 'em, tiger," Zapata teased.

And get him, he would. With renewed energy, Reade turned back to Mohsin and fished out the handcuffs key as walked back over. "We're going for a walk," he told the Malaysian. "Let's go." Unlocking the cuff from the shelf beam, Reade gave Mohsin a push towards the entrance and walked him back into the afternoon sun. "Now, let's go through this again," he said, aiming them towards the truck. "Troy Argent – you've never spoken to him before, correct?"

"That's right," Mohsin sniffed. "I remember his face, you know? Because I see him around. But that's all. I can't believe he's dead."

"And the reason you ran from us is because your work Visa expired and you thought we wanted to deport you?" Reade asked, closing them in on their destination.

"Yes," Mohsin wailed. "Yes, but it's not my fault, I swear. The company. The company lost all my paperwork."

Reaching the flatbed, Reade cuffed Mohsin to the driver's side wing mirror. "And the only cell phone you own is the one you've got in your pocket. Is that right?" he finished, holding on to his poker face.

"It's the only one," Mohsin nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

"Just checking." Opening the door to the flatbed, it took Reade all of thirty seconds of searching to find the hidden burner phone in a pocket under the passenger's seat. Getting out of the truck and waving the phone in front of Mohsin, he watched the blood drain out of the man's face with a triumphant sense of satisfaction. "Want to try all that again?" he asked.

* * *

According to their aging security guard, the camera pointing directly at the back of the warehouse - camera ninety-one - had been broken for some time. "We keep telling management to fix it," the guard apologized, cringing under Weller's cold glare, "and they keep saying they're going to send someone. But they just never do. Been like that for weeks."

"What's the next closest one?" Weller shot back, feeling his blood pressure rising.

"That'd be number ninety-two."

Weller's phone rang as Zapata brought up the feed, and he looked to see Reade's name on the display before answering. "What do you got?" he asked.

"Put me on speaker. You guys are going to want to hear this," Reade answered.

Weller hit the button, holding the phone out as Zapata continued working on the footage, this time rewinding the video backwards from the point Weller followed the blood trail out the door.

"You're on speaker," Weller said, his eyes glued to the screen.

"You guys aren't going to believe this," Reade started, "but Mohsin and Argent have been using the port to smuggle in human organs to sell on the black market. Kidneys, bone marrow, livers, corneas, you name it and they import it – for a price."

"That's _disgusting_ ," Zapata said, distracted for a moment as she paused the video and turned around. Her face was screwed up in revulsion.

"The donors are all overseas?" Weller asked, jumping immediately to the thought of Jane as one of those donors. His heart rate was picking up. The grip on his phone was tightening.

"Yeah, from Malaysia," Reade answered. "People over there who are desperate and looking to make a quick buck will meet their contact for the operation, get paid in cash, then there's an express ship that travels from there to the U.S. in four days. Their contact uses that express trade route to import everything so that the organs are still usable when they arrive. They use this special supercooling process I've never heard of."

"I can't listen to this," Zapata mumbled, shaking her head and turning back to the screen to focus on the video.

The news that donors were exclusively from Malaysia didn't alleviate the pounding beat in Weller's chest. Mind racing, he began to wonder if Argent had decided Jane was a threat and had arranged it so she'd be cut up for parts and disposed of. The thought sent the room spinning sideways. Weller gave his head a shake, narrowing his focus to just the phone in his hand, instead of the image of Jane's bloody body.

"Okay," he struggled, swallowing hard to help his dry throat. "So who's the contact? It's got to be someone who comes over on the boat with the shipment, right? He's got to be the guy who took Jane."

"I don't know yet," Reade admitted. "Mohsin's clamped back up again. But now that we know what to look for, Patterson should have…hang on, that's her calling now."

The phone went silent as Reade put the call on hold. Turning his attention back to the monitors, Weller was just in time to see Zapata spinning right around in her chair to face him. "I beat Patterson," she said with a smile, pointing back with a finger at the paused monitor. "Check out who's caught on camera."

Looking down at the screen, Weller saw that camera ninety-two came from the warehouse next door and pointed predominantly down at the emergency exit door of its own building. The view they wanted was a wide sliver along the top of the screen. Not much, but there was enough to see a white cargo van parked right beside their building's emergency exit. It was far, and the van had been backed in to its spot, which meant that only the driver's side of the vehicle was in view. But Zapata had paused the screen at just the right moment.

Frozen on the tape was a Caucasian man with brown hair, wearing a simple white T-shirt and black jeans. One hand was reaching for the driver's side door. The other was pressed against a bleeding wound near his stomach, just below his ribs.

Weller's heartbeat hammered loud in his chest. "That's our guy," he said, clenching his jaw until it hurt. "That's who took Jane." Looking down at Zapata, he asked "Can we zoom close enough to run a facial? Does the video show her actually being put in the van?"

The agent shook her head. "Maybe to the first question, but no to the second. The camera might be close enough to get enough detail, but the exit door under camera ninety-two was opened by some janitor a few seconds before this frame. It blocked out everything. Once the door closed again, this was the clearest shot before whoever this guy is drove away. She had to be in the van, though. We searched the warehouse and there's no other place she could have gone."

Weller was about to tell Zapata to start tracking down the van when there was a crackle of noise and Reade's voice came back through the phone.

"Hey, guys, it took some work but Patterson's figured out who the third guy is. It's Mohsin's brother, who works as a surgeon out of a hospital in Kuala Lumpur. His name is Dr. Umar Mohsin."

It took Weller a second to comprehend the news. Then his heart skipped a beat. Looking from the Caucasian man on the monitor back to his phone in disbelief, he didn't want to accept what he had just heard. "Wait a second, you mean to tell me that the third guy is definitely _Malaysian_?" he asked, hardly believing the words. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah…?" Reade said slowly, sounding confused. "Is that a problem?"

Blinking, mouth gaping open as the one strong lead they had slipped through his fingers, Weller could barely find the words to speak. "Yeah, it's a problem," he choked out. "It means whoever took Jane is someone else."


	4. Nowhere But Down

**A/N: Friends, I'm so sorry again for this huge delay. I just got myself through some huge, massive deadlines and even though there are more to come, I had a chance to focus on this for the first time since all the craziness began and get this written out. I'm on holidays for two weeks as of the 21st so I'm really hoping that will mean lots of writing for me, and lots of reading for you. But first I have to get myself through the rest of the craziness. Until then, enjoy.**

* * *

Director Mayfair walked briskly, purposefully, towards Patterson's desk, for her seventh update since receiving news that Jane had gone missing. Her mind raced, wondering how Weller was handling the situation. It raced with all the ways she could wind up losing both of them, for completely different reasons. She needed this to end quickly. She needed this to end _well_.

Approaching Patterson from behind, she watched the analyst closely as she stood by her computer terminal and spoke into her cell phone. Blonde ringlets bouncing as she gave a nod and hung up, the Director wondered if fate was ready to play that card yet. She wondered if maybe this time there was good news.

"Tell me we've got something," Mayfair said, coming to a stop.

But as Patterson turned around, wide-eyed and mouth gaping, it became clear fate had different plans in mind. "That was Reade," she said, her fair complexion was a shade whiter than usual as she held up the cell. "The last member of the organ smuggling operation is a dead end. It wasn't him."

Mayfair closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head in frustration. "So we're nowhere?" she asked.

"Maybe not." Looking back at Mayfair with grim determination, she quickly reiterated what Weller and Zapata had found on the security footage. "They're going to work on tracking the van, and I'm going to try enhancing the footage for facial recognition. It doesn't sound like a slam dunk, but it's something."

Mayfair nodded as she took the news in, relieved to know they at least had a couple leads still to follow. Weller, she knew, had been successful before with much less. "It's something," she solemnly agreed. Something for her lead agent to keep his brain occupied with. Something he could still plan around, execute, and control. Still, it made her uneasy wondering just how big the mountain was going to be that Weller would fixate on moving in order to put his plans in motion. Leads or not, this was still Jane they were talking about.

As if summoned by this thought, the sharp, shrill ring of Mayfair's cell phone cut through the air. Glancing at the display, she shot Patterson a look and said "It's Weller" before lifting the phone to her ear and preparing herself. "Weller, Patterson's just bringing me up to speed. What do you need from me?"

She had barely gotten the last word out before the answer came loudly in her ear. "I need every single person who's available," the agent demanded. "I need a pair of eyes for every cam that leads out of the port, cruisers sweeping every road, an APB put out on the make and model of the van with Jane and her kidnapper's description, a team to verify the location of anyone who both owns a white cargo van and matches the description, traffic checkpoints set up at every block within a fifty mile radius, a satellite retasked, air support, our best people analyzing the blood samples we have from the scene, a full autopsy on the dead guard, whatever Patterson asks for to run facial recognition, and I need it all in an hour."

It was quite the list. Taking a moment to digest his demands, Mayfair realized Weller didn't want to move a mountain after all. He wanted to move the Earth itself. Work cut out for her, she decided to start with his easiest request. Moving the phone away from her, she covered it with a hand before asking Patterson; "Can I get you anything to help run the facial?"

The analyst must have heard at least some of Weller's speech because she stood tall and alert, eyes darting from the cell back to Mayfair like she couldn't decide if it was a trick question. "Uh, no. No, don't worry about me. I'm on it," Patterson answered, hustling to sit down and begin her work.

Mayfair nodded, already walking away as she said to the woman; "I'll leave you to it, then. Call me the minute you have a match."

Heading back to her office, Mayfair went over Weller's list again in her head, trying to decide what favours she could call in to meet some of his more challenging requirements. "Kurt, listen to me. I'm going to get you whatever I can to help get Jane back, but you know that some of the things you're asking for can't be done in an hour. I need you to be realistic about this. I need you to stay objective."

"I am staying objective," Weller shot back. Every word was punctuated in his instant rise of anger. "Jane is the most important FBI asset we've ever have. That means we do everything to get her back, no matter what it takes. I'm not going to lose her again."

Rounding a corner and scanning a row of empty desks for their police liaison, Mayfair wondered if Weller had meant to speak his last sentence out loud. Somehow, she doubted it. And it brought all her original fears rushing back. She pressed her lips into a fine line before continuing on to her office.

"Where are Agents Zapata and Reade?"

There was a pause before Weller answered, and Mayfair could practically hear him dissecting the reason for her question. "Reade's at the warehouse. Tasha's here at the security office with me. Why?"

"Put her on the phone."

There was a moment of silence, followed by the muffled sound of the agent's name.

"Zapata," came a new voice.

Coming to a stop by the door to an interrogation room, Mayfair paused for a moment to collect her thoughts, almost feeling badly about the request she was about to make. "Listen to me very closely," she began, focusing on the door's brass handle. Her voice was low and grave. "I want you to keep an eye on Weller. We all know he's too close to this and if things go sour there's no telling what he'll do. Watch him. Keep me in the loop. And if it's necessary…" Mayfair hesitated for only a moment before pressing on. After all, since coming clean about Daylight it was almost irrelevant if he hated her more than he already did. "If it's necessary then I'll pull him from the field."

Zapata's reply was instant, sharp and hushed. "It's not going to come to that. We'll find her. We just need a little time."

Mayfair rubbed at her forehead, knowing full well Zapata's request wasn't something anyone could rely on. "You know as well as I do that the longer this takes, the worse it will get. For both of them," she answered. "Keep me apprised, Agent Zapata. That's an order."

Zapata made a sound of frustration, not impressed with the idea of ratting out her boss. Still, Mayfield wasn't exactly giving her much of a choice in the matter. "Yes, ma'am," was all she said.

* * *

Weller stood with his back to Zapata, gaze intently transfixed on the colour print out in his hands. It was a fuzzy screen shot they had printed of the bleeding man with brown hair, frozen in time as he reached for the van door. Who was he? Weller studied every pixel of it for clues as he ran through possible answers, motivations, scenarios, trying to figure out how the man's story had led to Jane's disappearance.

Up until a few minutes ago, Weller's brain had felt scattered, like someone has used a cue ball to break his thoughts apart and send them cracking around his head. Now, staring at the distorted pixels on the page and willing them to give up their answers, he felt a renewed sense of laser focus. Now, his tense muscles were coiled and ready to attack. Now, Weller had a target. It didn't matter who he was or where he'd gone. Weller felt it to his bones. He would find the man who had taken Jane. And then he would make him pay.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zapata hand offering back his cell phone. He took it, eyes not leaving the page as he asked; "What did Mayfair want?"

"What do you think she wanted?" she challenged, not looking at him as she returned to her seat and the camera controls in search of the white van. "She wanted to make sure you could handle this, because she thinks you can't."

Weller narrowed his eyes as a bloom of raw determination spread in his chest. "She's wrong," he answered simply. Then he looked up and changed the topic. "The guy who took Jane - I've been thinking about how he fits into all this. We know he's bleeding, we know he wasn't part of the smuggling ring itself, and we know our dead guard was holding a knife."

Zapata paused with her hands above the keyboard, turning to look at Weller over her shoulder as she followed his train of thought. "So if whoever took Jane was a buyer and didn't get what he paid for, maybe he came to the port looking to put some pressure on the guard. They get into it and one of them ends up dead." Shrugging, Zapata asked the logical question. "So then why take Jane?"

Weller had already been thinking it over. "If he saw Jane and the guard talking, he could have thought she was part of the ring, and thinks she can find him another match. If he's desperate enough, he might even think she could be a match." Through the crescendo of his heartbeat, Weller made a decision. "We need to see if Mohsin can ID this guy. If not, then we need a list of all his buyers," he said, turning as he headed for the door. "Keep looking through the footage for the van. Call me as soon as you know where it went."

Zapata started calling after him, saying something about how Reade could do that himself and she needed him to stay. But her requests fell on deaf ears as Weller walked through the door without a glance back. He was on a mission. And no one was going to stop him from getting Jane back.

* * *

Thanking Zapata for the warning before pocketing his cell, Reade guessed he had about a minute before Weller showed back up at the warehouse to put Mohsin through the wringer. He decided to use that time, and the impending threat, to his advantage.

Turning his attention back to the man cuffed once more to the shelving unit by the bustling crime scene, Reade put his hands on his hips and shook his head sadly, like a doctor about to tell a patient it was terminal cancer. As he had hoped, Mohsin picked up on the body language right away.

Standing straight, the man watched Reade with an intense look of silent hyper vigilance. "Who was that?" he asked, referring back to Zapata's call.

Reade gave his best look of pity. "Agent Zapata," he explained. "She wanted me to know our boss is on the way here to rip you a new one. I'm real glad I'm not you right now, because that guy is scary as hell."

Darting a look at the warehouse entryway back to Reade, Mohsin shifted uncomfortably. The handcuff attached around his thin wrist clacked against the metal frame. "Why? I told you everything," he promised. "There's nothing else to say."

"Sure there is. You haven't given me the names of all your buyers yet," Reade answered, making a show out of checking his watch. "Damn, and you don't have a lot of time, either. He's going to be here any second."

Mohsin's eyes nearly bugged from his head. "But, but I don't know their names!" he insisted, pulling on the handcuff as he stepped as far back as he could from the direction of the entrance. Like being a few inches further away could somehow save him from Weller. "Argent found the buyers and I never asked for names because they weren't important. We just needed to know blood and HLA type," Mohsin explained. "Then we met to do the exchange and take their money. I told you all this already. I swear I don't know anything else!"

"Right, because your honesty track record has been real great so far," Reade countered. "Do yourself a favour and tell the truth this time. It'll save you from a whole lot of hell."

"But I am telling the truth," Mohsin exclaimed, looking at the entryway. Then, with a genuine look of fear on his face, he pulled hard on the handcuff, like he hoped it would break off so he could run. "I swear I don't know their names. I don't know who they are!"

Following the man's gaze, Reade instantly understood what had brought on the sudden panic. Weller was storming into the warehouse with a piece of paper in his hand, and his hard gaze fixed on Mohsin. He looked like he was coming for blood.

"No, no, no," Mohsin begged as Weller drew closer. "I really don't have any names. Please, I'm begging you. I don't have any names."

"Shut up," Weller snapped, coming to a stop beside Reade. Holding up the piece of paper, he shook it just inches from Mohsin's face. "The guy in this picture killed your buddy over there and kidnapped one of the members of my team. He's got brown hair, he's about six foot, 160 pounds, and was driving a white cargo van. Here's how this is going to work. You're going to look at this picture and tell me if he's one of your buyers." He shoved the picture against Mohsin's nose, causing the man to lurch back against the shelving unit in fear. "Got it?" Weller demanded.

"Hey, just take it easy," Reade said to Weller, reaching out and feeling the agent resisting as he pulled his arm back a few inches. The good-cop bad-cop tactic was in full swing now, but it wasn't just a tactic for Weller. "Don't make the guy go cross-eyed, all right?"

"Start talking," Weller demanded, not taking his eyes off Mohsin as he completely ignoring Reade's comments. "Do you recognize him or not?"

Mohsin adjusted his glasses with a shaky hand. He squinted at the picture for a few seconds, then shrank back as he looked over it at Weller. "I don't know. It's too hard to tell."

"Look again," Weller insisted, shoving the page back in Mohsin's face. "Caucasian male. Six foot. One hundred and sixty pounds. _Think_. Does he sound like one of your buyers or not?"

Reade tensed, trying to anticipate what Weller's next move would be when Mohsin didn't give him a good enough answer. How could he with such a blurry photo and vague description? "Just be honest with us," Reade coaxed. "If you can think of someone, then we can get you a sketch artist and this will all be over soon."

When Mohsin hesitated, Weller stepped forward and slammed a fist against the metal frame, right next to the driver's head. The resounding clang caused the entire CSI team to look over in surprise and Mohsin to jump as far away as the handcuff would allow.

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking!" the man pleaded, straining against the cuff to get away from Weller. He held his free hand up like a shield. "There might be a few people, but I just don't know. I only see them for a few minutes when we do the exchange. Honest, I just don't know!"

Just like the moment he had caught Mohsin up in his own lies, Reade finally felt like he was getting the truth. "Hey," he said to Weller, putting a hand on the agent's shoulder. "Let's just get a sketch artist down here and they can work with him. Or better yet, we can take him back to the office and _not_ do this in front of all these people."

Staring hard at Mohsin for a few silent moments, Weller's sharp and furious eyes then met Reade's. "He's telling the truth, isn't he?" he asked in a voice that was quiet but snarling with frustration. "About not knowing their names. Not remembering what they look like." Giving a hard shake of his head, Weller slammed a fist against a metal frame. "Jane's out there somewhere and he can't help us at all."

Reade nodded solemnly, giving Weller's shoulder a reassuring squeeze with his one hand while he pulled out his phone to call in a sketch artist with the other. "It was a long shot, but we've got other leads. Something solid's going to turn up."

When the phone suddenly began to ring in his hand, both men looked down in surprise. The call display read 'Patterson'. "Put it on speaker," Weller instructed, visibly tensing up again.

Reade hit the button, holding up the phone between them. "Hey, I'm here with Weller. We've got you on speaker. Did you get a match?"

"Well," Patterson chimed through the speaker. Her voice was hesitant, full of reservation that set Reade on edge. "Honestly, guys, I don't know. I corrected the pixilation as much as I could before running a facial scan based on the nodal points I could get an approximate enough measurement of. That gave me thousands of hits, so I cross referenced that with what we know about our mystery guy's height and weight and narrowed it down from there to just men who were either on an organ donor list themselves, or have relatives who were."

"And?" Weller asked impatiently. "Patterson, spit it out. What did you find?"

"That's the thing. There was only one match and it was a dead guy. His name was Terry Jordan and he died last year of kidney failure," she explained. "So I went back to height and weight, and cross referred for location, narrowing it down to just residents of New York or New Jersey. There are still hundreds of hits, but one of them jumped out at me." Patterson hesitated in a way that made Reade's skin crawl before she added; "That's why I'm calling."

Next to him, Reade heard Weller suck in a hard breath in preparation for whatever was coming next. They exchanged looks and it was Weller who asked the question. "Who is he?"

"His name is Victor Plame. He's thirty-one years old, with brown hair and green eyes, stands at six foot one, and weighs a hundred and sixty-seven pounds according to his employment records. But here's the thing," Patterson said, her voice tight as she dropped the bombshell. "Plame works in special ops for the CIA."

Reade reared his head back in surprise. "The CIA?" he repeated. In a flash, he was back to the Caesium-137 case and the tense cemetery stand-off, hearing a certain Deputy Director negotiate for some time alone with Jane. Suddenly, all the pieces started to fall into a very particular picture. "Oh, damn," he mumbled.

Beside him, Reade watched the blood drain from Weller's face as the agent uttered a single, broken word. "Carter."

* * *

Charging down the sixth floor of New York's CIA satellite office, Kurt Weller was on a warpath. He could barely think straight. He could barely breathe. His heart was pounding and his brain was screaming at him for answers, bombarding him with images of torture methods he knew the CIA used. Electrocution. Water boarding. Confinement boxes. Closing in on Carter's closed door, Weller knew only one thing. If the Deputy Director had arranged for Jane to end up in one of his black sites, if he had ferreted her away to torture her for information, then Weller found out the location, he would kill him.

He would kill the man in cold blood.

"Excuse me, sir?" An older woman in glasses sat at a desk next to Carter's office. She rose from her chair as she saw Weller coming. "Excuse me, who are you? I can't let you go in there. Director Carter is – "

Weller threw his shoulder against the door and went in, spotting Carter sitting at his desk over a stack of paperwork. He looked up in surprise at the intrusion.

"Where is she?" Weller demanded, marching over to the Director as he rose in his chair.

The next images to flash through Weller's mind were of ceiling shackles. They kept prisoners upright for days at a time. Sleep deprivation. The use of white noise.

"Special Agent Weller," the man drawled, opening his hands up in greeting and quickly covering up his surprise with faint amusement. "Sorry, son, but you're going to have to be a little more specific that – "

Weller grabbed Carter by the lapels of his jacket. Yanking him away from the desk, he shoved the man backwards with all his strength and smashed him against the wall. _"_ Where is Jane?!"

The Director coughed, trying to regain the breath Weller had knocked out of him. "Jane? She's missing?" he choked out.

"Victor Plame," Weller snarled, thinking next of the restricted diets. How they stripped prisoners naked and left them to freeze. He gave the Director a vicious shake as his pounding heart roared in his ears. "You sent him to grab her while we were in the field this afternoon. I have the footage. I _know_ it was him."

Carter stared in disbelief. "Have you lost your goddamn mind?" he shot back, grabbing hold of Weller's hands and trying to wrench himself free. "Agent Plame has been on a covert mission in Syria for the past three months. How the hell could he have kidnapped your girl from another country?"

In Guantanamo, Weller knew there had been beatings. Detainees had been slapped and punched multiple times a day.

He shook his head furiously, not willing to believe a word. Not willing to believe Carter would spare Jane from any of it. The man was a heartless, conniving bastard. "You're lying. You made it clear you've wanted to question Jane since Mayfair wouldn't trade her for Dodi. Tell me where she is," he demanded. " _Now_."

Carter spoke the next words slowly and clearly, leaning forward like he was explaining something to a young child who just didn't know any better. "Listen to me very carefully, Agent Weller. I don't know where your girl is. But if I had to guess, I'd say she got tired of being your little tattooed puppet and ran away. Can't say that I blame her, since you're all more interested in solving her body puzzles than letting her figure out who she really is."

Fire blazing up his throat, Weller let out a furious growl. Although the images of torture were unrelenting, he could still see through them enough to know that Carter was stalling. Trying to rile him up enough so he'd completely lose his focus and make a mistake. It wasn't going to work. He wouldn't let Carter get away with this. Releasing the Director, Weller took a step back and pulled out his gun. Taking aim, he pointed it right in the middle of the Director's chest – a kill shot – and thought of Jane, afraid, alone, and unable to escape. "Last chance," he warned. "Start talking."

From behind him, Weller heard the door burst open and a commanding voice ring out.

"Agent Weller, stand down," ordered Bethany Mayfair.

In an instant, Reade and Zapata were at his sides, grabbing for his gun and locking their arms around each of his own. They forcefully spun him around as Weller protested and resisted, craning his neck over his shoulder to keep his eyes on Carter, fuming as they forced him out the office.

"You'd better keep a tighter leash on that pitbull of yours, Director Mayfair," Carter threatened, giving Weller a dangerous smile. "Or someone's going to have to put him down."

Mayfair stood seething by the entrance. As the trio passed her, Weller caught the daggers in her eyes before she snarled "Let me handle this," and closed the door in his face.

Alone in the hallway, Weller yanked himself free of Reade's and Zapata's grasps and took a few steps away. His heart was pounding. He couldn't rid himself of the thought that Jane was being tortured. Weller scraped his hands through his hair, starting to pace the floor.

"Do you realize what you've done?" he demanded. Glaring from Reade to Zapata, Weller pointed furiously at the closed door. "Now Carter knows that we're on to him. I had one shot – _one shot –_ to get the answer we needed and you interrupted me. You dragged me out of there and now he'll move Jane and we'll _never_ find her." Speaking the words caused a panic to claw up his throat. He resumed pacing, trying to figure out what he could do. How he could still find Jane and bring her home safely. He would do it. He would find a way to get her back.

Reade stepped in front of him, crossing his arms as he blocked his way. "Weller, listen to yourself. We don't even know for sure that Carter is behind this. It could all just be a coincidence that one of his agents happens to look like our mystery guy. There were a million different ways we could have ran at this, but you took off and pointed a gun at the Deputy Director of the CIA before we could finish following the evidence. Are you really so blind you'd risk your career and jail time just to stick it to Carter? What the hell were you thinking?"

"What the hell was _I_ thinking?" Weller shot back. There was a painful gnawing taking root in his stomach. "I was thinking that this was my fault, and if I didn't get her back, then Jane was going to die alone in some box at a detention camp over a thousand miles away." Spilling out the words, his voice broke over the last one. Weller turned away, trying to hold himself together as he concentrated on breathing and the carpeted floor.

He would get her back. No matter what the cost, he would get Jane back.

At that moment, the door to Carter's office opened and Mayfair emerged. Seeing her, the agents held their collective breath as she closed the door and silently crossed her arms.

"Where's Jane?" Weller asked, though it came out as barely more than a hoarse whisper.

Mayfair glared at him. "Carter doesn't know," she said flatly. "And neither does Victor Plame, whom I just got off the phone with after tracking his GPS location. He's in Damascus, just like he should be."

Weller blinked, unable to comprehend the news. "No. No, that's impossible. It was Carter. This whole thing was Carter. It had to be."

Mayfair took a step towards him, angrily shaking her head. "Weller, that's enough. It wasn't Carter. And thanks to my promise of a favour, you can thank your lucky stars that he's agreed not to ruin your career by having you arrested for aggravated assault. But that doesn't mean you're off the hook." She pointed a finger at him, ready to lay down her judgment. "For your recklessness, and your clear inability to stay objective where Jane is involved, I'm hereby taking you off this case, effective immediately. Zapata and Reade will take you home, and you will stay there until further ordered. Am I making myself clear?"

As all the words slowly sank in and his brain started spinning like a top, Weller couldn't form a sentence of reply. On the one hand, Jane was safe from Carter's grasp. The crashing relief that it had been a coincidence after all, that she wasn't on her way to be tortured and never heard from again, made his knees weak. On the other, he was being banned from helping find her. And they were back again to still having no idea why she was taken or where. The conflicting emotions were overwhelming.

"Yes, ma'am," Weller finally forced out, somehow managing to hold Mayfair's gaze as the world spun in circles around him. "You're crystal clear."

* * *

Weller remained silent the entire drive back to his apartment. He was still in too much shock, too much disbelief from all the twists and turns he'd been thrown through, to have anything yet to say. His mind was still racing, though. Still building theories, and actively reminding him that every part of his body hurt. Everything was raw. If he hadn't been so wired and unwilling to sleep, Weller had no doubt he could fall into bed and not wake up again for a few days.

Beside him in the driver's seat, Zapata had tried to coax him into conversation. She had tried reassuring him that they'd keep him posted as matters progressed. They'd let him know the moment Jane was discovered. She'd even made a joke about Reade's poor driving skills as he followed in Weller's own car behind them. He had just nodded, barely listening as he stared out the window.

The moment Zapata finished pulling over to the curb outside his apartment, Weller took off his seatbelt. "Thanks for the ride," he mumbled as he began to exit the car.

"Weller," Zapata called after him as he stepped onto the sidewalk. Peering back in, he was met with her reassuring smile. "We're going to find her. I promise you, we will get her back."

"Thanks," he said in answer, leaving the door open for Reade.

Parking Weller's car in a rarely-available spot on the road, the agent got out and made his way to the SUV, tossing Weller the keys. "Hey, we've got this, all right?" he said, climbing in to the passenger seat. "You can trust us. We've got this."

Weller nodded again, rubbing his thumb along the ridge of the car key, feeling the grooves dig into his skin. "Find out where that van went," he instructed. "It's the best lead we have."

Promising they would, a few minutes later the agents were gone and Weller was alone on the sidewalk, looking up at his apartment. He couldn't imagine going inside. He couldn't imagine what he would do when Jane was still out there and he was expected to sit patiently and wait by the phone.

It wasn't going to happen.

Looking from the keys in his hands over to his car, Weller decided to take a drive. Specifically, a drive along all the roads around the port that a particular white cargo van could have gone. It was worth a shot, and frankly it was better than the madness of doing nothing that awaited him inside his apartment.

He had just taken a step towards his car when his cell rang. Heart pounding, Weller fished it out and didn't even look at the call display before answering. "Yeah? You got something?" he asked.

"Kurt?" came a female voice.

The sound of it stopped his heart from beating. It took the air from his lungs. It shot the blood so fast from his brain, he felt lightheaded for a moment in pure disbelief.

"Kurt. I'm so sorry. It's me. It's – "

"Jane?" Weller rasped.


	5. Beautiful Disaster

**ONE HOUR EARLIER**

Obediently waiting where the guard had left her, eyes roaming aimlessly over the various sized boxes stacked along the warehouse shelves, Jane allowed herself a smile as she listened to Weller give the Cole's Notes version of how the pig-shooting app worked. Although it was definitely the strangest children's game in her limited memory, Weller's voice sounded lighthearted and jovial, almost playful in her ear as he gave the explanation. Jane had quickly noted how Weller always softened up whenever Sawyer entered the conversation, and she could just picture then two of them together; Sawyer on his knee, grasping the phone in one little hand while he aimed his slingshot and fired the bird, Weller giving him a high-five when a pig was hit.

"That…sounds like a really weird game," she answered as her smile grew.

Zapata laughed, no doubt enjoying Jane's candid response. "It _is_ ," she agreed.

"Which is why Sawyer's obsessed," Weller answered. "The physics are sound, though, so I can't complain."

Jane's smile split open, not at all surprised that if there was any logical element to be found in something so bizarre, Weller would be the one to uncover it. Turning to look aimlessly towards the entryway and blue sky beyond, she half wondered why an animal capable of flying would be used as ammunition, and half wondered when the guard would return with an update. His hard demeanor and demanding orders to _stay here_ had been unsettling.

A moment later, Weller's calm but in-charge voice came back in her ear. "Team, I've got eyes on Mohsin. Head back over."

While Reade and Zapata chimed a response, Jane's heartbeat surged in her chest. Their angry bird discussion as she had waited around for Super Guard had been a nice distraction, but playtime was now over and her handler wasn't yet out of harm's way. He was still not as far from the warehouses as possible. With that in mind, Jane's focus snapped back to her most important priority: keeping Kurt Weller from living out her nightmare.

But before Jane was able to return back to his side, before she began to move in his direction, before even the neurons in her brain fired messages down to the muscles in her legs, there came a crash from behind her. Heart leaping into her throat, Jane spun on her heels to the source of the sound. Her hand flew to her gun holster, grasping empty air instead of a weapon. Then she froze, both remembering that Weller had taken the gun and by what she saw before her.

No more than ten feet away was the guard Jane had been waiting on. Under normal circumstances, his appearance would have been a welcome sight. Under normal circumstances, she would have walked over and told the man that their person of interest had been located and his assistance was no longer required. She would have shaken his hand, thanked him for the trouble, then sent him on his way.

But for reasons unbeknownst to Jane, these were no longer normal circumstances.

The guard had returned, had snuck up behind her, and with his tree trunk arms stretched out before him, had aimed his taser right at Jane's heart. She was about to be shot. She was about to be electrified by 50,000 volts. Her only saving grace was that the guard's head was turned away – distracted by the unexpected noise.

Adrenaline sparking through her veins, it took Jane about half a second to take the whole scene in, which meant she had another half second to act before the guard turned back around and fired. Without a gun of her own and too far away to try to disarm him, Jane did the only thing she could with the milliseconds left to spare.

She lunged sideways for cover, aiming for the closest box on the shelving racks.

At the same moment, the sound of a sickening _CRACK_ filled the air, like a mini firecracker. Jane's own shriek of pain came next, when the probes caught her thigh and the voltage went screaming through her body.

The pain was worse than anything she'd ever felt before. Worse than her first mission with the FBI, when Chao's bullet had grazed her upper arm and it felt like the burning fury would never end. Worse than the time she'd been hit in the jaw hard enough to spit out a molar. The pain shooting from her bleeding mouth had been as sharp and precise as a knifepoint. It was worse than the drone case when she had flipped the SUV, chasing down Gibson in his Hyundai when he had tried to escape. Hanging upside down from her seatbelt, it had felt like she had been punched over every part of her body.

To Jane, all those incidents paled in comparison to the electric current ripping through her central nervous system. To Jane, it was like being struck by lightning.

She didn't make it to the shelves. When the probes hit, her muscles had clenched up with contractions. Her lunge sideways turned into a fall. Jane tried to brace herself with outstretched arms, but they wouldn't cooperate. Nothing in her body would. All it knew was burning, electric pain. Jane's hip crashed against the concrete first, followed by her shoulder, and then the side of Jane's head just a few inches above her right ear. The impact was hard enough to make her see stars.

Jane lay crunched up on her side, helpless, trying to fight against the scream shoved against her clenched teeth as electricity coursed through her. Behind tightly closed eyes, all she saw was spinning blackness as she waited in agony for the pain to end. It had to end. At some point, it just had to.

And then, mercifully, it did.

The sudden switch off of pain was so instant, Jane let out an unbidden, strangled noise of relief as her muscles all turned to jelly. Her head was pounding, though, but Jane hardly gave it a thought as she forced her scattered brain to regroup. But it was hard to concentrate. Hard to focus on anything as her mind spun like a top. The only thing Jane knew for certain was that she was still in danger. Snapping her eyes back open, the panic brought on by the warehouse spinning before her eyes was matched only by seeing the man who had shot her going down to one knee by her shoulder. He reached for her head with a free hand, grabbed hold of her earpiece and ripped it free.

"So you wanna talk with Azri Mohsin, huh?" he mumbled darkly.

A half sneer formed as he then gave Jane a shove and she ended up on her back, blinking up at the too-bright rows of lights far above her as her head started pounding hammers against her skull. Squinting against the lights, Jane felt nauseous. The lights were swarming before her eyes. Everything was moving. The thought of somehow defending herself suddenly seemed impossible. Anchoring her elbows against the floor, Jane tried to push herself upright and received another zap of electricity for her efforts. She let out a gasp of pain as her eyed snapped shut. Her heart thudded as loud as her head, realizing her predicament.

It was bad. It was very bad.

"How's about you and me have a little talk, huh?" the guard continued casually. Jane opened her eyes again to see his hand hover down to a front pocket of her jeans. He tugged out her cell phone with little effort, studying it for a moment before putting it into his own pocket. "You can start by telling me who sent you, what their little pea brains think they're trying to pull…if I like what I hear, then I won't use my taser. If I don't, then I will. Easy enough for you?"

Jane's head was swimming. She hardly understood the question, much less knew how to answer it. A concussion. There was no doubt that cracking her head against the concrete had given her a concussion. She fought through the fog to try and work out a plan, trying to make her brain figure out how to get away. Somehow she had to first free herself from the probes still latched to her side. "The FBI," she rasped, slowly dragging a hand towards her thigh. "I told you…I was sent by the FBI. I work with - "

The last word was cut off by a gasp of pain as a new bolt of electricity jumped through her. Jane's entire body jumped too, from the shock.

"What did I just say?" the guard asked, waving the taser before her face. "You think I'm stupid enough to believe someone who looks like you would be working for the Bureau? You're from the Cipriani family, aren't you? Or the Wan family. I've heard the rumors. I knew it was only a matter of time before they sent some little punk to hustle me for my territory. Bad news for you, doll. I don't play well with - "

The guard's next word ended in a gurgle when a muscular arm snaked around his neck and snapped into a rear choke hold. He gasped, dropping the taser to reach up and wrench at his attacker's arm with both hands. The gun _thwacked_ against the floor and Jane was ripping the two barbs from her jeans a moment later, digging her heels against the floor to propel herself several feet backwards as a struggle unfolded before her.

The quick motion swirled Jane's stomach around. Through her aching vision, everything seemed foggy and surreal. What she saw appeared to be more like a dream than anything else. And when she looked to find the face of her rescuer - a brown haired man she almost immediately recognized - Jane realized with a start that the concussion had to be causing her visions. Or maybe even hallucinations.

It was the only way to explain how her rescuer was the man with the tree tattoo.

The guard let out a grunt for air as his face began to resemble a tomato. His pan-sized hands were both digging into the arm of Jane's rescuer, who was hunched calm and determined against the guard's back, refusing to loosen his grip. It looked like it would only be a matter of seconds before unconsciousness was reached when the guard tried a new tactic. Still down on one knee with a foot planted firmly on the ground, he used the lower center of gravity to hurl himself forward, flipping his attacker over his shoulder and breaking the grip.

Jane's savior landed with a hard _thud_ on his back, not wasting a second as he rolled away and came to a stand between Jane and the guard. The latter jumped up just as quickly, breathing heavily as the redness ebbed from his face. With murder in his eyes, he gave the taser by his feet an angry kick, sending it skidding across the floor before it vanished beneath the metal racks.

"Now there's two of you, huh?" the guard spat. With one hand moving towards his utility belt, Jane thought he might pull out the billy club. Instead, he reached behind him and produced a switchblade with a jagged edge that couldn't have been part of a port security guard's standard set of tools. Waving it menacingly in front of them both, the guard gave a vicious smile. "Doesn't matter which family you're from. I'm going to send your bodies back to them in pieces."

That was the last thing he said before launching into an attack.

Jane pushed herself up to a sitting position, trying to focus as her heart thundered in her ears and the world spun. The men slashed and dodged just feet from her but she could hardly move. She could hardly convince herself get a safer distance back. Her eyes were transfixed on the man who had rescued her. The man with the tree tattoo she caught blurred glimpses of as he weaved and ducked out of harm's way, doing whatever he could to stay between Jane and the guard.

It was him. It was really him.

And if he didn't win this fight, Jane knew she'd never be able to ask him the hundreds of questions that were swirling around as much as the room was. She had to somehow help. She had to somehow get to her feet and end this before her rescuer was killed.

At that moment, though, the guard feinted to the right before stepping forward and slashing to the left. The blade cut clean across the exposed side of Jane's rescuer, near his stomach, instantly staining his white shirt a bright red.

"No!" Jane cried out, unwittingly and momentarily drawing the attention of the guard back over to her.

It was that second of distraction that gave the man with the tree tattoo the advantage he needed. In one blurred move, he snapped a hand into the guard's wrist, propelling the knife away from him in the same instant that he used his other hand to grasp onto the man's neck and drive his upper body downwards into a knee to the ribs. Then all Jane saw was a blur of bloody metal as the knife came swooping around to plunge into the guard's chest.

For a moment there was nothing but rushing silence. Then came a strangled gurgle as the guard foolishly wrenched the knife from his body, ending his own life that much quicker as he tipped backwards and landing with a heavy _thud_ on the floor. From her seated position, Jane could see the soles of the guard's shoes sag to the sides and his chest deflate as he let out his dying breath.

Then it was over.

The man with the tree tattoo painstakingly righted himself. Breathing heavily, with one hand clamped hard over the bleeding wound at his side, he slowly turned around and faced Jane. Locking eyes with him, she couldn't have looked anywhere else if she'd tried. It was like a desperation, drowning and being thrown a life preserver. Clinging to her chance of salvation, Jane took in the man's every feature, the cut of his jaw, the scruff on his cheeks, the pained expression Jane sensed went beyond his injury as she returned her own frantic, bewildered one.

"You're hurt," Jane gasped out, struggling to get to her feet. The world was still spinning. Less so, but enough to make her stumble as she righted herself and pulled off her overshirt. Standing in her white tank-top, Jane folding the shirt up into a make-shift dressing before stepping towards her savior and offering it to him. Her wobbly body felt like jelly. "Let me take you to a hospital. Please. You need stitches and I have so many questions." When he silently took the offered clothing from her hand, she reached for him but he backed away, shuffling backwards towards the end of the warehouse as he pressed the shirt to his wound. "No, please," Jane insisted, desperation ratcheting up as she stumbled after, reaching for him, panicked that at any moment he would turn and run. "Please. Who did this to me? Who are you? How do we know each other?"

Jane's last question brought the man up short. He stiffened, and for a moment the pained look and anguish in his eyes changed to one of disbelief. Reaching for him, Jane finally succeeded in grasping his elbow and they both jumped. It was like grabbing hold of a ghost.

The man stood silently, his hazel eyes focused solely on searching Jane's like he was hoping to find something there. Something he had lost long ago. "You remember me?" he whispered hoarsely. His words were thick, and he appeared hopeful but at the same time cautious. Then his eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head. "No, that's…that's impossible."

"We were engaged," Jane blurted out, clamped with both hands to his arm, determined not to let him slip away - away from her like the mists of forgotten memories. "I gave the ring back to you after you said I didn't have to. I told you I did. Please. Please don't leave. Please just tell me what's going on."

The man hesitated, blinking in silence as the memory she had shared sank in. A moment later, he ripped away his gaze, looking down at his injured side, where the blood was already running down to stain his dark jeans and drip on the concrete. Then he looked back to Jane, his eyes focused on the side of her head that had bounced off the hard floor. The throbbing radiated through her brain.

"Fine," the man said. "Just not here." He started to move again, but this time tugging his arm so Jane would follow as he led them further into the warehouse. At the very back and off to the side, Jane could just see an exit door with a glowing sign above it. They went through it, into the sunlight where a white cargo van was parked just a few feet away.

The glowing afternoon sky strained Jane's eyes, making her blink in pain and causing her head to pound as the man opened one of the van's double side doors.

"Get in," he ordered.

Jane squinted at him through the blotches of black obscuring her vision. She was starting to feel sick. "Where are we going? A hospital?" Jane asked, hesitant to release her grip.

"Yes. Now get in," the man insisted, nodding to the inside of the van. Jane stole a glance and saw that the vehicle had been specially outfitted, with a double row of wide, metal drawers built along the entire side of the van. It reminded her of a modified ambulance. "I've got a KoolPak or two in the second drawer from the back," the man went on to explain. "Find one and use it to ice your head."

Unwillingly, Jane released her iron grip and got inside, hugging her knees to her chest and holding her breath as the side door slammed shut, only releasing the air when the driver's door was opened moments later and the man with the tree tattoo took his seat. Glancing at her in the rear-view mirror, he noted she hadn't moved an inch on the steel floor.

"Get one of the KoolPaks," he told her. His voice came out softer a beat later, adding "You need to bring down the swelling against your brain."

"First tell me who you are. At least tell me your name," Jane insisted, unable to look away from those hazel eyes and all the answers they contained.

Putting the keys in the ignition, their eye contact was broken as he started up the van. "It's Oscar," came the simple reply.

 _Oscar._

The name was like a small piece of a massive puzzle, connecting the meager pieces Jane already had put together: _fiancé, tree tattoo, artist, bird_ , _love, sadness._

 _Oscar_.

He was real. He was really there with her. And he was going to give her answers to all the questions that kept her up at night. Questions that had haunted Weller for –

Jane gave a gasp as her heart seized up in her chest.

 _Kurt._

Reality came crashing back down on Jane's head. Dear God, what was she doing? How could she have been so careless? With everything that had happened, she had managed to forget the most important detail. Kurt was in the process of chasing down Mohsin. He could still be in danger, and what was more, as Oscar began to drive them away, the one man who had spent the majority of his life haunted by his missing friend would now be faced with the fact that she had _once again gone missing._

Jane lurched to her feet, grasping the driver's seat tightly to steady herself as Oscar barreled out of the New York port and onto the main road. "Give me your phone," she demanded.

Oscar simply shook his head. "No. No calls, no texts, no nothing. I can't afford to have anyone trying to track us."

"But I have to talk to Kurt," Jane insisted. "He needs to know where I am. He'll be worried when he finds out I'm not at the port anymore."

"Let him worry," Oscar spat out. His knuckles on the steering wheel instantly turned white as his mood sharply turned. "He deserves to worry."

The biting comment dropped Jane's jaw. "Why would you say something like that? You don't even know him. You don't know anything about him."

Oscar's head jerked away from her. "You think so? Tell me - if you'd had your gun, would any of this have happened?" The question brought Jane up short, but Oscar carried on without waiting for a response. "Weller's supposed to keep you safe. He's supposed to protect you when you're in the field, and look what happened. You could have taken that guard out in a second but instead he got the drop on you." For an instant, angry and pained hazel eyes met her own before focusing back on the road. "Weller's the reason you didn't have a gun. He's the reason you got hurt."

Turning sharply left, Jane had to hang on as the van abruptly cut onto a road with a thick row of trees straight ahead. Righting herself, she felt a surge of anger. "He was worried after I'd given him every reason to be. What happened wasn't his fault. He was just doing what he thought was best. Now give me your phone so I can call him."

Oscar remained silent for a moment, with his jaw clenched either from his wound or stubbornness, and his one hand tight on the steering wheel. After a beat, however, the hardness in his face turned into something Jane didn't know him enough to recognize. Then when he finally spoke, his voice had lost its angry edge. In fact, she was struck with how exhausted the man suddenly looked.

"Listen," he said, "the hospital's on the other side of this park, about five minutes out. I'm going to drop you nearby and when you get to the ER you can call Weller on their phones. Just tell him you were knocked unconscious and when you woke up, you were a block away from a hospital. He'll survive until then. Now do you want to waste your time fighting me, or do you want answers? Either way, you've got five minutes."

The ultimatum caught Jane off guard. Conflicted over what to do, it occurred to her that while she had expected Oscar to come into the hospital as well, that had never been part of his plan. Her thoughts on how the next little while would play out spun around in her already pounding head.

"But you're bleeding," she argued, trying to give him a reason to stay. "You can't just drive away – you need someone to stitch you up."

Oscar kept his eyes straight on the road ahead, navigating around a bend that took them deeper into the park where the trees were heavier, out of the sunlight and into dappled shade. "I'll do it myself. It wouldn't be the first time," he said through grit teeth.

"But – "

"I'm not going to the hospital," Oscar shot back. "I'm a ghost. I don't exist. The minute I get caught is the minute it's all over." Jane was about to ask what that meant when she saw him glance down at her blood-soaked shirt in his hand, pressed hard against his side. Seeing it, realizing how heavy the fabric was with his blood, alarm bells sounded in Jane's head, ringing out with the knowledge that his injury was worse than she'd imagined.

"Besides," he added, looking back to the road with a pained expression, "it's not that bad."

Immediately, Jane pressed two fingers against Oscar's throat to feel out his pulse. She knew a healthy blood pressure was below 120 over 80, but as she felt the soft but rapid beats against her skin, Jane didn't need to start counting to know she'd be going over those magic numbers.

Oscar needed some actual medical treatment. If he kept waiting, it was possible that with his injury he'd eventually go into shock.

Spinning around, Jane tried to keep herself upright in the moving vehicle as she gripped the handle of the closest drawer and pulled it open, searching for something to stop the blood. "Where are your bandages?" she asked, noting in surprise that the drawer she had opened contained nothing but various sized boxes of bullets.

She heard Oscar's sharp, bitter bark of a laugh. "You haven't even gotten out a KoolPak yet," he said, as she opened up another drawer, this one of various packaged medical supplies; burn creams, catheters, empty syringes, needles of various gauges. "How about you stop worrying about other people and take care of yourself for once?"

About to open a third drawer, Jane froze at his off-handed comment. It had struck a chord, reminding her of something eerily similar Weller had said months ago, way back when the craziness had all been first beginning.

 _Your first instinct is to help people, Jane… You don't hesitate. You act. And you do the right thing._

It felt like two separate worlds were colliding in that moment. There was her current world as Jane Doe with Kurt and the FBI, crashing into this mysterious blank of a world that Oscar had promised to tell her about. In an instant, she had a small sliver of proof that who she was now was at least a little bit like the person she was then. And for some reason, it terrified her. Were there more parallels like this to be drawn? More similarities to be revealed? Jane shivered at a sudden rush of cold fear. A knot of anxiety formed tightly in her stomach. There were so many answers right at her fingertips. So many unknowns which could be finally put to rest. After months of dead ends, Jane had been granted a few precious minutes to find out the truth. The real truth.

But what if she didn't like it?

Jane bit the inside of her cheek, knowing in that moment she had to take the risk. And as Oscar's condition worsened, she also had to multitask.

"So who did this to me?" Jane asked, opening the third drawer and finding with relief that it contained packages of dressings. She began grabbing them up by the handful, searching for something to wrap them with. "Why was I chosen, and what's their goal? Why use tattoos? Where did these people even get the information for them?"

It wasn't until she had finished asking the last question that Jane began to feel the van starting to drift. Her head jerked up from the drawer. Looking at Oscar, her heart jumped into her throat when she saw the back of his head had slumped forward.

"No, no, no," Jane exclaimed, darting forward. "Oscar. _Oscar._ "

His limp hand slipped like dead weight off the wheel as she grabbed for it, looking out the front window just in time to see they were headed straight for a maple tree at nearly fifty miles per hour. With milliseconds to spare, Jane did the only thing she could. She wrenched the steering wheel as far as possible to the left and held on to the back of Oscar's seat for dear life.

The incredible force of trunk smashing into metal frame sent Jane careening sideways, launching off her feet and into the side of the vehicle before falling to the floor. The airbags burst out with a pop. Shards of glass exploded around her as the passenger side crushed in on itself and the back of the van lifted off the ground before slamming back down again. Then suddenly it was all over. It was eerily quiet, save for the loud ringing in Jane's ears as she fought through the daze.

Was she seriously injured? Was anything broken? It was hard to tell when everything hurt. After several moments of willing herself to move off the floor, Jane finally lifted a shaking hand to her face, feeling it slide easily down her cheek, frictionless against something wet. Opening her eyes, there was blood across her palm. Pushing herself to a sitting position, her back was stiff and painful and she spotted several other cuts up and down her arms from what had probably been flying shards of glass. Jane realized she was sitting in a pile of them, and they stuck to her jeans as she slowly got to her feet, wincing as she plucked a few of the larger pieces away.

"Oscar," she groaned, remembering as she came out of the fog what had happened a few moments before impact. She reached him, and put a hand on his shoulder, giving him a shake. "Oscar." He was still slumped in the chair, with a few new cuts across his forehead and probably a fractured rib or two from the airbag that had since deflated. Putting two fingers against his neck, Jane felt the same soft, rapid pulse and gave a breath of relief. He was still alive at least.

But he wouldn't be for much longer if she didn't stop the bleeding.

Jane struggled against her aching, battered body to turn back around, looking at the drawers she knew had medical supplies. Oscar had said he was planning on stitching himself back up, so there had to be at least a needle and thread in there somewhere. As for the blood loss, Jane remembered the packaged catheter tubes in the second drawer. She remembered her blood type was O negative. A plan slowly forming in her mind, Jane decided right there that it was lucky for Oscar one of the few things she knew about herself was that she was a universal donor.

As Jane began to raid the drawers, though, she wondered if it was actually possible for her to save Oscar's life. She wondered if the necessary medical training she needed happened to be tucked away somewhere in her brain, waiting to be tapped into. But there was no time to dwell on it. No time to do anything but act and pray her instincts would guide her through as they had so many times before. If they didn't, Oscar would die of hypovolemic shock. And even if they did, he might just still die anyway.

Teeth grit, equipment in hand, Jane got to work.

* * *

Tearing down the park road, listening on tenterhooks to the last few sentences of Jane's story, Weller was sure he heard the plastic case of his cell phone crack as he held it to his ear in a vice-like grip.

Up ahead was the smashed up white cargo van with its side doors fully opened. The very van he'd been so desperate to find. And standing beside it was the woman who made Weller's heart leap in his chest. The woman who he had gone through hell trying to find. The woman he would gladly go through hell for over and over again.

"I see you, Jane," he said into the phone, barely able to get the words out as his throat instantly constricted at the sight of her. "I see you."

He watched as a heart-wrenching smile broke across her face, waving at him as he sped closer. "I see you, too," she answered in relief.

Weller had to hit the brakes hard before coming to a stop, barely finishing throwing the car in park before bursting out the door. He was nearly frantic, practically running around the hood to bring himself closer to her. "Jane…God, Jane…" was all he managed before they collided, his arms snapping tightly around her as he lifted Jane straight off the ground in his embrace. "You're okay," he said, more to assure himself than for any other reason. "You're okay."

Weller felt Jane's arms squeezing hard around his neck. He felt the curve of her back beneath his hands. The curls of her hair between his fingers. The pulse of her throat as he buried his face into the crook of her neck. He just wanted to hold the woman in his arms forever and never let her go. Wracked with relief, at having Jane back again and in one piece, he began to shake uncontrollably.

"Kurt, I'm so sorry," Jane breathed against his shoulder when he finally put her down. "I never meant for this to happen. I called as soon as I could. I'm so sorry for whatever I put you through." Her hands were clasped tightly around the nape of his neck, holding him close, warming his skin against her touch. She must have felt the way his body wouldn't stop trembling against her because she pulled him closer still. "Please just say you'll forgive me," she begged.

Weller didn't hesitate. "There's nothing to forgive, Jane," he rasped out, squeezing her tighter, although Jane could only guess by his reactions what she was trying to apologize for. The entirety of Weller's manic drive to get to her had been taken up by his barrage of questions and Jane's recap of what had happened. Argent's attack, Oscar's appearance, his promise to tell her everything, the crash. As far as Weller was concerned, there were only two people in the world he could blame for all of this: himself, and that idiot of an ex-fiancé, who had nearly killed Jane because he'd been too stupid, stubborn, or both, to treat his own injury.

"There's nothing to forgive," Weller repeated against her neck.

Just then, their reunion was cut short by a groan coming from the direction of the van. Jane jumped in Weller's arms at the sound, pulling back from his embrace just enough to crane her head around and look at the figure lying prone on the van floor just a few feet away. The man whose life she had miraculously saved. Weller saw one arm twitch, and Jane turned back to look up at him with her big, green eyes. "I think he's finally waking up," she whispered.

Weller forced a smile, even though it hurt him to do it. As much as he realized Oscar was the key to blowing Jane's case wide open, he was also a man who used to – and probably still did, from the long story Jane had provided – deeply love her. And even though she had just very recently admit to having been once engaged, it was a world of difference to now come face to face with the man who had been the person Jane had intended to marry. It was hard to accept that she had saved his life by tending to his wound and stitching him back together. It was hard to accept that her blood now coursed through his veins. And harder still to accept that they shared a past together Weller couldn't stop Jane from trying to remember, no matter how much he wished it had never existed. A past he himself had never shared with her and knew nothing about.

Weller was still trying to wrap his head around it all. He hadn't had even a moment to sort out what it all meant, and how it would permanently change everything. He wanted to push it away, focus on the moment and the knowledge that Jane was alive and in his arms, but there it was. There Oscar was.

Yes, for Weller it was a whole world of difference than just being told about a former fiancé's existence as he had held Jane in his arms the last time, dancing a waltz. And even that brief conversation had hurt him more than it should.

"You should check on him," he urged Jane, though reluctant to release her from his arms. If truth be told, he was even reluctant to let Jane near the man. "If he's coming around, then maybe he can actually start answering some of your questions."

Jane gave a tiny smile and nodded in response. As she then released Weller and turned in his own loosened embrace, he hated the cold chill that came on. He hated feeling like if she went too far, something might happen to take her away from him again. Maybe something like Oscar. And although he did manage to let her go, one of Weller's hands found its way to the small of Jane's back, unable to completely part from her as she led them back to the van.

Sure enough, Oscar was coming around. Weller could just see his eyes starting to flutter open and his muscles start to twitch as they came to a stop by the van's double doors.

Jane leaned down, pressing two fingers against Oscar's throat to check his pulse. "Oscar," she said softly. "Can you hear me? It's Jane."

"Jane…?" Oscar groggily repeated. Blinking in confusion, he first looked around to get his bearings, starting along the rows of drawers, moving to the ceiling, then finally over to Jane, which started to bring a smile to his face. Then his eyes flicked over to Weller, and the FBI agent marked the exact moment when the man's brain registered what was going on with a smug sense of satisfaction. Oscar's smile dropped into a frown. His eyes grew hard and cold as he spoke to Jane but never broke Weller's gaze.

"I thought I told you not to call him."


End file.
